"The eyes again!" he cried, in an unearthly screech.
Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet. The noose was at his neck. It ran up with his weight, tight as a bowstring, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for five-and-thirty feet. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand.
The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out, for God's sake.
A dog which had lain concealed till now ran backward and forward on the parapet with a dismal howl, and, collecting himself for a spring, jumped for the dead man's shoulders. Missing his aim, he fell into the ditch, turning completely over as he went, and, striking his head against a stone, dashed out his brains.
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN
BY BRET HARTE
Francis Bret Harte, born in 1839 at Albany, N. Y., left his home at the age of fifteen for California, in which pioneer State he accumulated, in seventeen years' experience as school-teacher, gold miner, printer, journalist, and editor, so much and so rich literary material that he spent the remaining thirty years of his life in working it up into "copy." He won an international reputation by the "Luck of Roaring Camp," published in 1868, and the "Outcasts of Poker Flat," published in 1869. He lived abroad from 1878 to the time of his death (1902), publishing many volumes of California stories, all distinguished by the charm which won him his early fame.
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN
By BRET HARTE